


So Many Roads to Choose

by clio_jlh



Category: Broken Hearts Club
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Gay Male Character, Humor, M/M, Romance, Second Chances, Separations, Travel, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Eldee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:36:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clio_jlh/pseuds/clio_jlh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dennis keeps in touch with the guys while he's in Europe via email, and they help distract him from wondering about what Kevin's not telling him—and which, honestly, he'd rather not know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Many Roads to Choose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eldee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldee/gifts).



> Thanks to Ali and Jesse for the excellent betas; all errors are mine. Title from "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters; reference to Some Kind of Wonderful, written by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch.

Before he left for Europe, Dennis set up a Yahoo email account so he could access it from wherever he was. Not that he much expected any of the guys to be great correspondents, but it was more likely that they'd send him some three-line email than that they'd actually track down air mail paper and an international stamp.

He was amused when Benji's messages shrank from letters to something more like telegrams, only with no capital letters and ellipses instead of "STOP":

> TO: D-man (outoffocus@yahoo.com)
> 
> FROM: Bajayjay (bajayjay@hotmail.com)
> 
> SUBJECT: juice
> 
> meanwhile at the new juice bar ... will test him on dj knowledge

And then later:

> TO: D-man (outoffocus@yahoo.com)
> 
> FROM: Bajayjay (bajayjay@hotmail.com)
> 
> SUBJECT: hit me baby
> 
> juice bar guy total britney fan ... not even in ironic way ... slept with him anyway

Howie's emails came from his school account and were full of outrage at his program whenever they failed to recognize his insights, at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for discontinuing their lemon mint tea but continuing to sell coffee grown under fascist regimes, at the California Highway Patrol on principle. Patrick sent baby updates. Taylor was reading fewer self-help books and more cooking magazines.

Dennis was surprised, though, that his most consistent correspondent was Cole. Apparently sitting around on a set, or waiting for his agent to call, left him a lot of time for writing. Cole was the one who made Dennis feel like he was right back in West Hollywood, with his long newsy letters about who had said what to whom and who hooked up at Taylor's party (in Taylor's bed no less, _quelle scandale_). It was Cole who told him that Betty moved her chair to a new salon with better lighting, that Purple Guy's son showed up after years of estrangement and actually wasn't a complete asshole, and not to worry about Kevin because he didn't seem to be forming any lasting attachments.

And it was Cole who told him, in a very long email written after he'd returned to West Hollywood from a shoot in Vancouver (a certifiable minor role, with fifty lines, albeit in a small production) that Patrick and Benji were a thing. Apparently Benji had gotten tired of Patrick's bitching about his looks and appointed himself Patrick's personal trainer and nutritionist. After six months Patrick had a killer body, and when the boys took him out dancing to celebrate it, Benji was jealous of the guys suddenly all up in Patrick's business, and grabbed him for himself.

Dennis immediately emailed Howie demanding dirt, and why he hadn't told Dennis when it started. Howie replied that he was trying to pretend it wasn't happening because dating within the friend group is wrong, everyone knows that, and when it ends horribly, which it will, everyone will have to choose and won't that suck. Taylor, on the other hand, said he hadn't wanted to jinx anything by "telling tales" which made Dennis wonder what, exactly, Taylor thought was email-worthy. Upon reflection, the new relationship wasn't a shock; Patrick had been a little more upset about Benji's drug problem than the rest of them. Dennis just hoped they weren't becoming hard core macrobiotic types, because that would be tiresome.

Only Kevin ever asked Dennis about his work, even though he told everyone when he sold a photo. After being in the right place at the right time during a street protest in Budapest, he'd picked up stringer work from the AP. He was getting very good at framing action, especially the telling little scenes on the fringes of big events, such as the Parisian businessman emerging from his office for lunch to a street filled with leftist students picketing a meeting of the World Bank. Dennis found himself writing long emails to Kevin about the photos that weren't in the papers, about his experiments with filters and overexposure and degraded film and how the stringer work made him think about color when he'd always been an avowed black and white guy. Kevin asked for copies of his work, and Dennis got in the habit of shipping it all to Kevin for safekeeping. All things considered, Dennis was okay to only talk to Kevin about photography; that way his mind wouldn't wander to all the adventures he hoped Kevin was having but didn't actually want to hear about.  
That way, he could keep telling himself that he wasn't actually thinking about Kevin at all.

Three months turned into six months turned into a year, but a year was enough. He came back through New York, where his brother was living, made some more contacts, realized he'd developed quite a spot news portfolio while in Europe, good enough to get him work to pay the bills and leave him time to take other photos too. He'd sent a big group email with his arrival time, but while he adored his friends, they weren't exactly pick-you-up-at-the-airport types. Howie and Marshall had futon space for him, and he needed to rent a car for a little while anyway. And if someone else were there--well, Dennis wasn't a get-his-hopes-up kinda guy.

But when he got to baggage claim, he looked up in spite of himself, and there was Kevin, dressed up like a chauffeur in a hat and coat, holding a sign that said, "Big-time Newspaper Guy." He wanted to play it cool, but he couldn't fight the goofy grin spreading across his face and really, what was the point?

"Let me guess," he said to Kevin. "Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind of Wonderful."

Kevin smiled. "I had such a crush on her. It was so confusing."

"Sorry I don't have any diamond earrings for you," Dennis said.

"You could actually be Eric Stoltz," Kevin replied, "you're so scruffy."

"Yeah," Dennis said, rubbing a hand along his whiskered jaw, "Paris homos aren't as groomed as we are." His hair was longer than it had been, and tumbled into his face.

Kevin stepped back a little and regarded Dennis. "Keep it for now. I kinda like it." He picked up a suitcase. "I see the camera bag survived the year."

"Yep," Dennis said. "Among other things."

Kevin smiled at him, and Dennis wondered, could it really be this easy? He grabbed his other bag and followed Kevin out the door to the limousine parking.

"Where are the guys?" he asked.

"Waiting for us at Howie and Marshall's." Kevin slid the bags and his sign into the trunk of his Civic, then opened the passenger door for Dennis.

"They didn't want to come?" he asked.

Kevin's shoulders sank as he sighed. "Come on, Dennis, don't be an asshole about this. You said you'd come back, I said I'd be here, you're back, I'm here. Trust in the universe."

Dennis wagged a finger at Kevin, grinning again. "You've been reading _Love, Here I Am_! Did it prepare you for loving me?"

Kevin blushed. "Get in the damn car."

Once they were on the 405, Dennis asked, "So does this mean Cole is Lea Thompson?"

"Yes. Well, actually, you know how mad Howie gets about the whole gays in film thing?"

"Yeah, along with everything else. Why?"

"Cole's shopping a screenplay. Got some interest, too."

"About us?"

"Yeah, he said that if Affleck can sell a screenplay, so can he. Based it on all those emails he sent you this year."

"Those were some emails," Dennis said.

Kevin shook his head. "A movie about us. Can you imagine?"

Dennis looked out the window, up at the hills, glad to be home. "Yeah," he said. "I can."


End file.
